In credit card transactions, which are in extensive use today, the merchant is provided with an assembled pack or "formset" of transaction slips or components for recording information relating to the merchant, the customer's credit card account number, etc. at defined positions on the slips. The pack may consist for example of a first paper transaction slip to be retained by the merchant, a second paper transaction slip to be given to the customer, and a third paper transaction slip which is forwarded to the bank or credit card issuer. One or more paper duplicating slips having a duplicating medium, commonly known as duplicating carbon slips, are including in the pack, with at least one duplicating carbon slip sandwiched between two transaction slips. Hereinafter, the terms "duplicating carbon slip" will be understood to refer to a duplicating strip having a duplicating medium and thus is synonymous with a "duplicating medium slip."
Thus, in normal use, a sales clerk, for instance, records the transaction information on the top transaction slip in the pack and may also at the same time imprint information onto all of the transaction slips as enabled by the intermediate duplicating carbon slips. The respective transaction slips are then deleaved or disjoined from the pack for presentment to the customer, etc. and the remaining duplicating carbon slips are placed into a container for later disposal.
It has now been found that in some instances, certain individuals have obtained the customer's identifying account number from a used duplicating carbon slip and have wrongfully utilized this information. Present estimates are that about 100 million dollars are lost nationwide by credit card issuers due to fraudulent transactions resulting from the wrongful use of credit card numbers obtained from used duplicating carbon slips.
Several means are currently utilized or have been proposed to reduce the possibility of obtaining the credit card numbers in this manner. As an example, carbonless packs or formsets are in current use which incorporate a duplicating medium coating on the reverse side of one of the paper transaction slips so that a separate duplicating carbon slip is not needed in the pack. However, carbonless packs are substantially more expensive than packs with duplicating carbon slips. Due to the significantly large number of credit card transactions, in many instances, merchants do not believe the extra expenses involved with carbonless packs are cost justified to reduce the subject problem. Another proposal has been to instruct the sales clerks to tear the used duplicating carbon slips into several pieces before placing them into the container. In most cases, such instructions are not followed because the sales clerks do not want to get smudges of the duplicating material on their hands or clothing. While shredding machines are available and economically justifiable in instances where there is only one sales clerk, to provide a shredding machine at a number of sales clerk positions would be cost prohibitive.
Accordingly, it is desired to provide a pack of credit card transaction slips with duplicating carbons wherein the possibility of obtaining a customer's account number from the used carbons is eliminated or at least substantially reduced.